Monday, 5 November 2012

Diagramming

Diagrams seem to be
having something of a moment. Their usage in all branches of philosophy is
well documented; from the hard edges of logic problems, to Lacanian Strips and Tori to
the soft intensity of Deleuzean and Bergsonian planes of matter and
experience….

I came across many in the last 12 months of studying the voice. Curious and
often baffling attempts at mapping the intersecting spaces of body,
subjectivity and sound, perhaps attempting to locate an elusive voco-fragment
hovering within the blank and potential page which give space to the lacuna
between these concepts; as if the only way to spot it is to compose a line of
best fit amid the scattergun mess of crosses on the grid – one of which may hit
the mark.

While the notion of a diagram as a pedagogic tool meant to clarify and
enlighten is widely accepted, there are doubtlessly cases in which it might
actually make things worse (see below!) – but perhaps again this has to do with
gaps. Gaps in knowledge and an absence from the point of thinking in which the
diagram originated; to be coldly presented with such a visual maze is perhaps
to miss out some steps in the process. In other words there must be more –
there must be text or demonstration – a collective thinking through so that
that all the elements can nestle into sense. With nothing else around it, the
diagram below would be as useful without its mysterious labels than it is with
them.

So perhaps you need to be there. Or RE-be there. If not originating the
diagram itself, it becomes necessary / helpful to redraw it - to map the lines
for yourself. In some cases this might negate the unifying or democratising
space of scientific accuracy that the conventions of diagramming suggest -but
it does allow a more personal shading and figuring whose subtle diversions can
point toward a particular, subjective understanding.

The notion of originating diagrams as a parallel or even proxy practice
for conceptual unpacking is also interesting. For a recent project I ended up
approaching a literary essay in exactly this manner – with Nabokov’s infamous
exam questions (devised for his English Literature class at Cornell in the 60s)
as a starting point, I attempted to investigate the use of slow motion in
Kafka’s Metamorphosis via a measured method of data collection and
meticulous graphing, rather than via more tried methods of text or research
based enquiry. This idea of applying un-native methods across genres, media and
practices was introduced to me by Kate Briggs, a writer and translator whom I
met through the experimental publishing house Information as Material. The idea of a more
‘hands on’ approach to making theory or marking reading
immediately appealed to me as it seemed to somehow dislodge certain conceptual
barriers – in the sense that adhering to other rules and conventions allows a
certain circumventing of the usual obstacles to thought – a more direct route
though if you like.

I haven’t tested it extensively but the operation in this case was
certainly a success, opening up and shedding light on a feature of the novel
that I would not have noticed otherwise. Plus the visual methodology was
intensely satisfying – liberating even.

Simon
O’Sullivan’s new book “On the Production of Subjectivity: Five Diagrams of the
Finite-Infinite Relation” too deals in exactly this notion;
explaining a series of diagrams which allowed the writer a freer approach to
theoretical work, in many cases acting as the pathway to ideas that would not
have emerged otherwise. Also, within contemporary philosophical thinking –
these info-images act as morsels of vocab or stretches of code within some kind
of shared language or conceptual plane. They can be overlaid, combined, cut and
pasted and edited together – O’Sullivan unlocks one particularly interesting strain
of thinking via the juxtaposition of Bergsonian and Lacanian visual concepts.
In thinking along these lines I notice too (for the first time) that the
troublesome diagram I mention above, which to me had always looked like a
spinal, corporeal structure – bares more than a passing resemblance toBergson’sCone
of Memory (below), spiralling upwards like a hurricane from a
trapezoidal plane of matter or axis of experience.

Could this accidental observation elucidate something about the initial
image that had previously eluded and baffled me. Perhaps so. Perhaps more than
a forensic understanding of its complex terms may afford.

So again, it appears that a slippage and desire to work, perhaps
roughly, with this scientific rigour, is the way through to new thinking and
understanding.

I listened to a discussion by O’Sullivan this evening on the topic of
Bergson and memory, which centred around his notion of the pure past and the
presence of universal matter that lingers in varying proximities to the black
holes of our relative experience – shaping the world as we see, feel and
remember it. The discussion of our relationship to these various, elusive
elements of time and action caused me to think about Graham
Harman’s ideas around Object Oriented Ontology – which attempts
to move away from an anthropocentric philosophy and to explore the inner lives
of objects - as equally caught up with notions of time and emotion as these may
no doubt be.

1 comment:

Hi! Very interesting info, I like you post some further information to look at. Im sorry but I wanted to know the name of the second diagram in the post, its quite interesting and want to do some more research on it